K5 Dome Light Wiring Around Weatherstripping

[getmillican]

Hello everyone. I don't normally post new threads since I can almost always find the answer in another thread, but this issue has be stumped. I'm replacing the inner and outer weatherstripping for the hard-shell on my 1984 K5 Jimmy. On my model (and most others I've seen), the rear interior light harness passes through a hole in the upper rear carb, routes under the outer weatherstripping down the driver side, and around the interior side of the B-pillar before connecting through a small window on the driver side hard-shell. Has anyone successfully re-routed this wire inside of the B-pillar instead of outside under the weatherstripping? I appreciate any thoughts, comments, cautions or suggestions.

 

[Conner]

I have had my roof skin completely off and both B-pillars cut open doing rust repair. See my build thread for pics of those areas.

I considered routing the dome light wires differently because running it under the weatherstripping also seemed kinda dumb to me. After having access and visibility to inside the B-pillar, I abandoned the idea of rerouting the wires. The B-pillars aren’t a single “tube”, they are several layers, and the layers kind of overlap in weird ways which would make running the wires very hard/impossible.

The big “roll bar” type thing you see under the roof skin in my pictures at the top rear of the cab roof seems like you could run the wires through there and down the B-pillar. But it doesn’t connect down like you’d think it would. It’s blocked off at either side before the vertical part of the B-pillar starts. Hopefully that makes sense.

I do think it could be done, but not without likely having to cut and reweld sheetmetal to do it. And that would leave the wires unserviceable.

In my opinion it’s probably not a good idea just because of the way the inner B-pillar structure is.

 

[getmillican]

I have had my roof skin completely off and both B-pillars cut open doing rust repair. See my build thread for pics of those areas.

I considered routing the dome light wires differently because running it under the weatherstripping also seemed kinda dumb to me. After having access and visibility to inside the B-pillar, I abandoned the idea of rerouting the wires. The B-pillars aren’t a single “tube”, they are several layers, and the layers kind of overlap in weird ways which would make running the wires very hard/impossible.

The big “roll bar” type thing you see under the roof skin in my pictures at the top rear of the cab roof seems like you could run the wires through there and down the B-pillar. But it doesn’t connect down like you’d think it would. It’s blocked off at either side before the vertical part of the B-pillar starts. Hopefully that makes sense.

I do think it could be done, but not without likely having to cut and reweld sheetmetal to do it. And that would leave the wires unserviceable.

In my opinion it’s probably not a good idea just because of the way the inner B-pillar structure is.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I too questioned the design to route the wire under the weatherstripping, but after your explanation of the structure, it makes sense why the factory did it this way. Agreed on the effort vs reward. Will be applying exactly as original.